The lovely bones review

Susie Salmon: My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name: Susie. I was 14 years old, when I was murdered, on December 6, 1973.

Director: Peter Jackson
(2009)

Peter Jackson. Fran Walsh. Stanly Tucci, Sariose Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz. From the names listed above, the lovely bones seems like it could be a great film. It’s based on a popular book. Who better to craft the film adaptation of a popular book that peter Jackson and Fran Walsh? They did, after all, turn Tolkien’s lord of the rings books into money making, Oscar dominating masterpieces. Despite this abundance of talent, the lovely bones is absolutely trash, and is a perfect example that a good cast and crew doesn’t equal a good film.

The film stars the usually excellent Sariose Ronan as Suzie salmon, a young girl who is brutally murdered by her neighbor. She narrates the majority of the film from the afterlife as her loved ones grieve her murder. This is as detailed as a plot summary can become; the lovely bones is exceedingly thin on the ground. It trades in good narrative and development for characters who mope around and lots of CGI. The first person narration is ample opportunity to give the film some material but instead comes across as very self indulgent. Everything that Susie narrated is meaningless trash and is undoubtedly the worst use of narration I've ever encountered in a film. A fine example of this nonsensical drivel is “My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name: Susie”. If there was ever a quote to sum up the quality of a film, it’s this.

For its first half, the lovely bones is a drag. Characters are paper thin and little important actually occurs in this time. The only redeeming features are in the form of some pretty visual effects shots and the performance of Stanley Tucci’s Mr. Harvey, the films antagonist. The afterlife in which Susie spends most of the film is really quite beautiful, and coupled with some strong cinematography, makes for some pleasant eye candy. Tucci is the films real redeeming feature though, offering a creepy and disturbing character. His intricate actions and unsettling demeanour add considerable tension to the film; he’s the glimmer of light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

Still, Tucci can’t prop up all of the film though it’s overly long run time which is made worse by the constant narration and completely disjointed plot arcs. Susie frolics around the afterlife spouting nonsense while her family grieves her loss. While she does this, the films somber atmosphere is ruined by the character of Suzie’s grandmother. Its only months after Suzie's  murder, but Jackson feels the need to give the film comedic relief in the form of a terribly unfunny montage of drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes. It’s moments like this when the lovely bones shows its true colours; a cheap, lazy, misdirected mess. Even Sariose Ronan was poor, a surprise considering the talent that this young actress possesses.

The lovely bones stumbles to its conclusion, rounding a bad story with a generic and soppy ending. Its manipulation is cheap and transparent, it fails to bring the tears because Jackson has done such a bad job of making us care for these characters, anyone who sees this film for what it actually is will just be glad it’s finished.

2